The United States Open Golf Championship is as its name suggests, open to anybody. Be it a professional golfer or an armature or even a handicapped if he or she is with an up to date USGA’s handicap index and it is open to both male and female golfers as well. But there are certain ways to get an exemption from the US Open golf qualification and believe us these rules for the exemption are really interesting. Let us have a look at these exemptions from qualifying from the US Open Golf as on 2013 rules.
The Exemption Rules for the US Open Golf
- All the winners of the past ten years of the US Open are exempted.
- The winner and the runner-up of the last year’s US Amateur tournament need not go through the qualifications.
- Winner of the last year’s Amateur Championship.
- The winner of the last year’s Mark H. McCormack Medal, which is for the top-ranked amateur golfer of the world.
- Winners of the last five years’ Masters Tournament, the Open Championship and the PGA Championship.
- Winners of the last three years’ Players Championships
- Winner of the current years’ BMW PGA Championships
- Winner of the last year’s US Senior Open.
- All top 10 finishers of the last years’ US Open golf.
- Those players who had qualified for the last year’s Tour Championship.
- Top 60 golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) standing two weeks before the start of the tournament.
- Special golfers have chosen by the USGA
- All other golfers qualified from the various qualifying tournaments.
The Benefits the Winner gets after winning the US Open Golf
- The pre-decided prize money
- An automatic invitation to play all other three majors, the Masters, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship for the next five years.
- An automatic invitation to play the Players Championship for the next five years.
- No need to play qualification rounds for the US Open golf for the next ten years.
- Five-year exemption from the PGA tour.
- For the non-PGA player winner, he can join the PGA within the 60 days of the winning the US Open or prior to the beginning of any of the next five PGA Tour seasons.
- When the US Open champion turns 50 he will get an automatic invitation to play the US Senior Open Championship for the next five years and a lifetime invitation to play the Senior PGA Championship and the Senior British Open.
Note: All top ten finishers at the US Open Golf are exempted to qualify from the next years US Open golf and top four finishers get the invitation to play the next year’s Masters, automatically.